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Google says Yahoo-Microsoft deal will hurt search
The head of Google’s search organization said the search deal announced Wednesday between Microsoft and Yahoo looked likely to be negative for competition and for consumers. If Yahoo adopts Microsoft’s Bing search engine in place of its own, that will reduce the search market from three major players to two, said Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search and user experience. She said several groups at Google were still studying the proposed partnership, which is expected to close next year, but that it might reduce innovation. The likely effects of the deal are being debated in various corners of the industry. Some observers have suggested it may increase competition in the online advertising market, by creating a more viable competitor to Google.
Yahoo developers concerned about future
Yahoo’s high-profile and widely used search APIs (application programming interfaces) and search programs for external developers are up in the air after the company’s decision to outsource its search engine services to Microsoft.
This uncertainty is causing concern among developers who have spent time and resources using Yahoo search APIs and programs like BOSS and Search Monkey. In the wake of Wednesday’s announcement of the deal with Microsoft, Yahoo is doing little to dispel the worries of search developers it has until now aggressively courted. Asked for comment about how the Microsoft deal will affect Yahoo’s search developer initiatives, Yahoo was noncommittal.
Intel’s Atom chips will not be delayed
Intel said on Wednesday that it will deliver new Atom chips on time later this year, rejecting a report that the chips have been delayed until 2010. At least one report Tuesday said Intel had delayed the release of its new Atom platform, Pine Trail-M, which includes Atom chips based on a new architecture. The platform integrates a graphics processor and memory controller onto the Atom processor. The report is incorrect and Pine Trail-M is scheduled for release to PC makers later this year, said Mooly Eden, general manager of the mobile platforms group at Intel, during an event in San Francisco. He didn’t say when this year the platform would be released, but said that Intel may show some prototype Pine Trail-M netbooks at the Intel Developer Forum in September.
Symantec’s sales take a hit in Q2
Symantec blamed slowing enterprise sales for a sharp drop in earnings for its quarter ended July 3. The security software vendor reported earnings of US$73 million, or $0.34 per share, for its first quarter of fiscal 2010, compared to $172 million and $0.40 per share in the same period last year. Analysts polled by Thompson Reuters were only expecting slightly better. They predicted $0.35 per share. Net revenue for the quarter was $1.43 billion, down from $1.65 billion in the corresponding quarter last year. The drop in revenue came as enterprises focused their spending on shorter-term contracts or maintenance renewals, leading to fewer new licensing deals
…And those are the top stories from the IDG Global IT News Update, brought to you by the IDG News Service. I’m Sumner Lemon in Singapore. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.
